of troubles to come. A difficulty with
Venezuela, resulting in British and German co-operation to coerce that
refractory republic, caused an explosion of anti-German feeling in England
and some restlessness in the United States, but the government brought the
crisis to an end by tactful handling and by an ultimate recourse to
arbitration. The two chief items of the ministerial parliamentary programme
were the extension of the new Education Act to London and Mr Wyndham's
Irish Land Purchase Act, by which the British exchequer should advance the
capital for enabling the tenants in Ireland to buy out the landlords.
Moreover, the budget was certain to show a surplus and taxation could be
remitted. As events proved, it was the budget which was to provide a cause
of dissension, bringing a new political movement into being, and an issue
overriding all the legislative interest of the session. Mr Ritchie's
remission of the shilling import-duty on corn led to Mr Chamberlain's
crusade in favour of tariff reform and colonial preference, and as the
session proceeded the rift grew in the Unionist ranks.

In the separate article on Mr Chamberlain the progress of this movement is
sufficiently narrated. From this moment it is only necessary here to
realize Mr Balfour's position. He had always admitted the onesidedness of
the English free-trade system, and had supported the desirability of
retaliating against unfair competition and "dumping" by foreign countries.
But Mr Chamberlain's new programme for a general tariff, with new taxes on
food arranged so as to give a preference to colonial products, involved a
radical alteration of the established fiscal system, and such out-and-out
Unionist free-traders in the cabinet as Mr Ritchie and Lord George
Hamilton, and outside it, like Lord Hugh Cecil and Mr Arthur Elliot
(secretary to the treasury), were entirely opposed to this. Mr Balfour was
anxious to avoid a rupture, doubtful of the feeling of the country,
uncertain of the details by which Mr Chamberlain's scheme could be worked
out. As leader of the party and responsible for the maintenance of so great
a political engine, he was anxious not to be precipitate. He was neither
for nor against the new movement, and professed to hold "no settled
convictions" on the subject. Mr Chamberlain rested his case largely on the
alleged diminution in British trade, and the statistics therefore required
investigation before the government could adopt any s